


October 18: Muscle Worship

by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Kinktober 2019, Muscle Worship, but like whatever, it's day 18 of this thing and I've written 30+ stories, less kink more character study, they can't all be exactly on topic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 22:02:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21083795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/pseuds/Perpetual%20Motion
Summary: Will is asleep, and Liv takes time to reflect on the strength of him.





	October 18: Muscle Worship

In the half-light of early morning, Olivia watches the way the shadows highlight the muscles of Will's back. She reaches out to touch, tracing her finger over the curve of a bicep, comparing the width of his shoulders to the size of her palm. 

His arms are thick, and his ribcage is deep, and Olivia remembers the first time she realized she wanted to curl against him and let the size of him make her feel safe. It'd felt like an absurd notion. They'd been in the early months of a wary but growing friendship, and the idea that she'd ever turn to Dodds to feel secure felt silly. They'd be more than acquaintances, she thinks. Less than confidantes. 

But something changed. She's not entirely sure what, though she knows Mike played a role. He'd had such a different view of Will than Liv had ever seen. "My father," he'd say with pride and love and clear respect. Not in the way some men do when they fear their fathers and think that's love, but in a way that felt warm and honest. 

The squad teased Mike about how often he mentioned his dad, and Mike had shrugged it off with a laugh. "Hey, someone around here has to like the guy," he'd said, and Liv had watched from her office doorway at the way that won over Fin and Rollins and Carisi. Suddenly, when Dodds dropped in, everything went a little smoother. Everyone could breathe a little easier. Mike had shown them a human component outside of the pain-in-the-ass Chief, and once they saw it, no one could ignore it. 

Liv slides closer to Will, stroking down his back next to his spine where he holds so much of his tension. She thinks about that day in the hospital, Mike shot and losing blood and Will standing outside the room with an absolute iron grip on the handrail that ran down the hallway.

"He'll be okay," Liv had said because what else was there to say. She'd reached out and touched his hand, surprised at how quickly he let go of the handrail to clutch her fingers like a lifeline. "He'll be okay."

"You don't know that," Will had said, and Liv had thought about Noah's chest colds and pneumonia. Those long, long days wondering if she was going to get a call from the hospital that no one wanted.

She'd pulled Will to her then, hugging him tight. He'd been straight-backed for the first few seconds, then crumbled against her. She'd felt the way his muscles went loose under her hands and simply held on. 

Mike had held on too--a minor miracle, according to the doctors--and he'd come back to SVU the moment he could. He'd knocked on Liv's door his first day back--pale and thin from so many weeks of recovery, but that same sweet smile on his face--and thanked her for looking after his dad.

"He doesn't have a lot of people," Mike had said. "Thank you for being one when he needed it."

"Of course," Liv had replied.

And that shifted things again. A wary friendship now cemented by shared fear and shared affection. Liv had made a point to call Will every few days for an update on Mike, get him to meet her for a drink or a meal. She'd brought Noah along more than once and watched the wall Will doted on him. He picked him up and tossed him in the air, catching him easily in his big hands. He gave him hug after hug because Noah kept asking, kept wrapping his little arms around Will's neck and resting his head on one of those big shoulders. He listened to Noah's babble and helped him say new words, and Liv had realized sometime in those weeks of Mike's recovery that the fleeting curiosity of leaning on Will and feeling the size and breadth of him around her was feeling more and more like a necessity than a passing fancy. 

Will stirs in his sleep and shifts, turning from his back to his side. Liv looks at his pecs and his torso, touches him on his ribs and feels him breathe. She remembers the day he asked her to dinner. They'd fought about a case--loudly and with serious animosity--and then the fight had ended, and Will had said, "Do you want to have dinner?"

And she'd stared, then laughed. "Really?"

"I've been wanting to ask for weeks, but I didn't know how, and honestly, I figure if I still want to take you out after we've fought like that, I should just bite the bullet."

"How romantic." 

Will had shrugged, and Liv had laughed again and said yes. 

And now here they are, months later. Will still asleep and Liv awake and taking him in. Feeling the power he carries under his skin and knowing there's so much more to him than that. She tucks herself against his chest, draping an arm around his waist, feeling secure and safe against the size of him, and she falls back asleep.


End file.
